Vending machines capable of providing beverages and foods of various types, typically following the payment of a preset amount, which is managed by means of an adapted interface, are ever more extensively widespread.
Vending machines of the type described above are in fact installed for example in public spaces such as for example shopping malls, train stations or subway stations, gymnasiums, swimming pools, parking lots or, more simply, along streets or at the edges of city squares.
Moreover, similar devices are increasingly often made available to employees of companies, and therefore within offices, factory buildings, workshops or other workplaces.
In all the contexts described above, vending machines have a common structure, which, as is known, provides for an outer casing, which is usually boxlike and encloses internally the foodstuffs that can be dispensed, as well as the automation systems required to perform the dispensing.
On the front wall of the casing, in addition to a window from which it is possible to withdraw the requested product, there is the interface, which allows the user to interact with the vending machine in order to send the request for the specific goods of interest and make the corresponding payment, as mentioned earlier.
Although vending machines intended for dispensing snacks, sweets, complete hot meals are not absent from the market, a large portion of the market is occupied by vending machines for beverages of various kinds.
In this case also, it is straightforward to note that the offer is highly varied; by means of the vending machine it is in fact possible to purchase and consume one or more beverages among mineral water, coffee, tea, milk, hot chocolates, soft drinks, energy drinks, freshly squeezed fruit juices, etc.
Moreover, it should be noted that recently, alongside the demand for freshly squeezed fruit juices, the market is developing a growing interest in extracts of fruit (or also of other agricultural products), which often offer interesting advantages with respect to freshly squeezed fruit juices.
In fact, although both freshly squeezed juices and extracted juices ensure the possibility to quench one's thirst more healthily than soft drinks and the like, and allow parents to circumvent the natural aversion of their children to consuming fruit and vegetables, extracts (due to the specific manner in which they are obtained) often have a more balanced nutritional content than freshly squeezed fruit juices.
Moreover, more simply, the centrifugal juicing process can constitute a valid alternative where, due to the specific type of fruit (for example an apple), squeezing does not allow to obtain quality juice in a practical manner.
Indeed for the reasons described above, recently some manufacturers have put on the market vending machines which, following a specific request of the consumer, are capable of subjecting to centrifugal juicing a fruit accommodated in an internal magazine and to provide externally the juice thus obtained.
However, these constructive solutions are not devoid of drawbacks.
First of all, it should be noted that the centrifugal juicing process provides for the coordinated execution of different activities (cutting, shredding, and pressing, in addition of course to the step of actual centrifugal juicing of the materials progressively obtained), which usually require a manual contribution of the user. Therefore, it is immediately evident that it is very difficult to be able to obtain quality extract by means of the vending machine, indeed due to the difficulty in automating steps and processes that are usually entrusted at least partially to a human being. The difficulty described above in fact leads manufacturers to renounce some steps, with evident negative consequences on the quality of the extract.
Moreover, in order to be able to obtain effective centrifugal juicing, it is necessary to ensure precise and correct feeding of said juice extractor, and the magazines and any transfer mechanisms used in commercially available vending machines are often found to be inadequate for this delicate task.
Moreover, the requirements described above, which as mentioned are met only partly by known vending machines, must clash with the need, which is obviously equally important, to keep the overall cost of the apparatus within low values, in order to avoid making the installation of the vending machine uneconomical (or having to impose an excessively high purchase price of the extracts).